Solution: Error Open EPS in Gimp 64-bit with Ghostscript

I have been spending a lot of time to try to find a solution to the problem where GIMP 2.8 64-bit with Ghostscript cannot open EPS images.

After the “Import from PostScript” dialog you will get an error similar to: Could not interpret Postscript file ‘C:\logo.eps’ Opening ‘C:\logo.eps’ failed

The answer to this problem can be found in this bug report (thanks to Jako Grobler) but this is the short version.

Starting with GIMP 2.8.x you no longer need to install Ghostscript to be able to open EPS images, instead the dll is in included with the GIMP-installation. This means you can forget about the instructions about setting the GS_PROG environment variable, trying to switch between 32-bit and 64-bit versions etc.
However at least up until the latest version of GIMP (2.8.4) there is something wrong with the included dll.

HI, I just wanted to give a tip to all that are having troubles with eps files and GIMP. I tried everything and nothing worked! The only solution I came up with that is fail safe, is to convert your eps file into a jpeg (or any other type that GIMP can read.)

Andrea – I tried your solution and… Yeh…. it’s Jpeg, not a vector, so it kind of loosing it’s appeal…
But I guess that’s all we got left….
We’ll just have to wait until the GIMP guys figure out Win8.
It’s better than nothing, so Thanks….

32bit Gimp 2.8.6 (the latest at that moment) doesn’t work with EPS correctly for me… No GS_PROG required, libgs-8.dll included. But doesn’t work – couldn’t open the EPS file, after forced replacement by gs 9.0.7 library – the error “eps-load… haven’t return the value”…
My solution is to use GS directly to convert to PNG with transparency support:
1) Dowload and install GS (http://www.ghostscript.com/download/gsdnld.html)
2) Make a bat file with name eps2png.bat in gs bin folder (f.e. C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.07\bin)
3) Write to the bat file a line:
gswin32c -dSAFER -dBATCH -dEPSFitPage -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=pngalpha -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4 -r600 -sOutputFile=”%~d1%~p1%~n1.png” %1
4) Repalce “gswin32c” with “gswin64c” for 64bit systems
5) Replace “-r600” win “-rXXX” where XXX is DPI if need more or less
6) Make an shortcut (link) on that BAT file and put into SendTo folder (it’s hidden and is located in C:\Users\ in Win7)

Hi
Sorry, I’m a little dummy with these things.
I don’t understand step 6, maybe because I have Win 8??
Can anyone help please? I have Win 8 64 bit.
Also, how do I know if I need to change DPI number?
Thanks….

You can get into the SendTo folder by using a special command:
1) Press Win + R on your keyboard and you will see a Run command window
2) use a command “shell:sendto” to get into the required folder
It works on WinXP, Win7, Win8

Hi,
Thank you for your response, I did what you offered and did found the SendTo folder, but still can’t make it work.
I think there’s something that I don’t understand in the instructions.
Thanks anyway,
Galia

Thank you man, you’re a live safer, I’ve been fighting this for more than an hour, when I finally stumbled across this! Thank you!! Now I just need to find a solution for linux ubuntu… lol also having some problems there :SS

Thank you so much for this! I have been trying various workarounds for hours, and no system variables settings, alternate downloads, or anything else was working for me. But your solution fixed everything. Great post!

Excellent solution! I was having exactly this problem. This worked with Windows 8.1 (64-bit) and GIMP 2.8.10 (64-bit), along with GhostScript 9.14 (64-bit). Thanks so much for providing this solution. I wonder why that DLL is not working properly in the original installation of GIMP? In any case it fixed the issue of not loading EPS files perfectly, and without much fuss.

Running GIMP 2.8 and GhostScript 9.15 on Windows 8.1 – struggled to find a working solution (everybody suggesting amending the ‘GS_PROG’ variable) until I found this. THANK YOU for being one of those heroes!

Oh my gosh! Thanx for the solution man! not only Saved my day, but also my work was shorter for like 2-3 hours 🙂 I am using Win 8.1 64bit with GIMP 2.8.14 and GhostScript 9.15 64bit and this solution works! again thanx man! Internet needs more heroes like you

Just noticed that I am using an old version of GIMP, so I updated to the latest
GIMP 2.8.14 and tried to open an eps file again. Same result as before. It did not work. So then I went through the dll replacement process listed above, and it now works perfectly.

Bottom line, the latest version of GIMP still needs this dll fix. But when you do it, it works perfectly.

I am getting so frustrated. I have followed these instructions on two different computers and I’m getting nowhere. I’ve created the bat file and wrote the code to it and I still cannot open my EPS file in GIMP. The initial solution of copying the dll files over to gimp from gs etc allows me to open the file in GIMP, but it’s not transparent. Obviously with so many happy campers here… I must be doing something wrong.

I go to my gimp folder and there is no libgs-8.dll file. I’m running Windows 10 and the latest version of gimp as of 8/23/16. I downloaded ghostscript. But I don’t know which dll to replace in the Gimp bin folder. Can someone help?

Excellent! Many thanks. Surfing for a while trying to figure out what’s wrong, given that ghostscript working well with inkscape but not with Gimp. Curious not being yet solved at the last version of Gimp 2 since you (and Jako Grobler) reported this. Now working well in Windows 8.1, Gimp 2.8.20 and Ghostscript 9.21 (64 bit).